Starting to grow a beard... like so many high school boys...

Today was shot number twelve, bringing me up to eleven weeks on testosterone.  I am now out of syringes and will be going to the doctor on Tuesday.

I'm starting to grow a beard.  Alright, maybe not quite enough for me to call it that, and it's true that I had facial hair to begin with, but there's so much more of it.  In most lighting it actually shows up as facial hair, too, whereas it used to be you had to actually be looking for it.  It's also starting to fill in between the two distinct patches, and it's spreading along the jaw and connecting with the neck hair I usually shave off.  Grows out blonde, and then in a week or so it thickens up.  Really neat to watch, actually.

My motivation level tapered off a little.  The amount of time I spend exercising is... well, rather small.  But my eating habits are still relatively well-checked and my grades are still up.  Also, I'm down to 226 pounds (I'd gotten up to 240 in January).  I've found myself to be slightly more impulsive, which is probably a side effect of the whole motivation thing.  This is a mixed bag... it's coaxing me into doing things I should have started doing long ago, but it also means I do some things without thinking about them.

My Girl Scout Cookie Story

So I went to the store today. I was going to wait because it's snowy out... the roads didn't look bad but my driveway is coated, so even though I needed milk I'm all "I can wait."

Then I remembered today was cookie booth day. I had wanted to go to the cookie booth because I didn't buy any cookies from individual girls. So I'm like, yeah, milk can wait, but I'm not going to give up my one chance to totally ruin my diet for a while, especially considering there's a "massive" cookie boycott by the bigoted-by-design American Heritage Girls (or rather their parents), so I monster-trucked my way out of the driveway.

I told a girl who asked me if I wanted cookies that I'd be back when I was done shopping, so I go and I get my milk and come back. I think about it for a minute before saying "You know, I'll just take one of each."

To which the leaders/volunteers looked at me funny like "Whut? One of each whut?"

"One of each kind?" To which they looked at me as if I'd just bought ten cases of cookies, "Really?"

"Uh, yeah."

So one of the leaders scrambles with a bag looking all excited, the other starts doing math on a calculator to tell me what I owe. I gave them a twenty and told them to keep the rest. Which wasn't a lot but everybody was very excited about it.

(I'm getting the impression they didn't sell a lot of boxes today)

One of the leaders tells me I can keep them in the freezer, and I say I know because I used to be a Girl Scout. In reality I was thinking "Freeze them? You, sir, underestimate my ability to be fat."

As I left, I overheard one of the girls saying "Boys can be Girl Scouts?!" To which the leader replied, "I guess so."

The Birthday Card My Parents Gave Me

 It's my birthday on Tuesday, so all my family members were getting me cards and stuff.  This was my favorite, which is from my parents:

Awww, sweet, they refer to me as their son finally!  The best part is when you get to the inside, though, when you realize why Mom picked this card:

LOL!

Yesterday's Shot #9, Awkard Facebook, and Phone Therapy

Had shot number nine yesterday, putting me at eight weeks on testosterone.  Again it hurt more than shot number one, but it's not painful enough to actually bother me both due to my high pain tolerance and because I just haven't been injecting for that long yet.

Changes are slow, as is to be expected.  I have longer vellous hair on my face, especially on the chin around where I already had patches of terminal hair, although it's still vellous for now.  I shaved it off, we'll see how long before it looks like real hair.

I've found that I'm usually very motivated and excited the day I get my shot, with a climax the hour after.  That goes on for about half the week when I revert to a normal motivation level (which is still higher than it was pre-T).  Part of it is I think the rush from actually giving the shot and the relief when it's over.  I do it, and it's fine, but I always get nervous first.

Wax Face And Other Stories

Giving myself my shot, beginning of week 2.

I haven't really been updating much on the shots, have I?

Well, here it goes.

I had shot number four last Thursday.  It was as painless as the shots on the first day.  Even the more painful shots aren't that bad, though... shots two and three stung, but they were definitely do-able.  Getting through the skin is not so much of a challenge yet, and it only starts hurting once the needle is maybe 3/4 of an inch in, and not very bad.

So, changes.  Have there been some?  Well, the answer is "yes."  It's been three weeks and five days and my body is clearly at war for my ovaries.  My skin, especially, bounces in condition like a small rubber ball, except this rubber ball exists specifically because it doesn't know whether to trust the T or the E.

So on day two or three I got what I like to call wax face.  It looks kind of like this:

It's mostly on the forehead and the nose although it's on the upper cheeks as well.  That's oil.  That's maybe an hour after washing my face.  It makes the texture of my skin in general look more masculine.  It went away after a while but it happens again after every shot.  So it's definitely a hormonal thing, the same effect that makes adolescents get acne.

Speaking of which, I have that too.  It isn't so much on the face... I get a zit here and there anyway.  It's on my chest and shoulders.  I've been using a body wash for it and it's gone down, but it's still there to a degree that so far is not bothersome.

My voice is changing just a little.  It's mostly noticeable when I try hitting higher registers, like if I'm babytalking the dog or something I'll squeak.  Otherwise it's slightly deeper and raspier, but not in a way that's noticeable if you don't have a real frame of reference (like, if you listen to a video of me talking from pre-T versus one now).  That, like the face, bounces up and down quite a bit.

So that's that for now.

I'm not being self-depreciating, I'm just saying I'm not more legit.

"You're not like her, though."  No, seriously, wait until you hear this.  "I knew her back before she got into all this transguy stuff... she still acts like the same lesbian she always has been, I mean just look at her.  You, you're legit."

What prompted this, and keep in mind this was a long time ago, was the fact that I requested people stop referring to Zachary, probably the first other trans man I ever met in person who I knew was a trans man, as a lesbian and using female pronouns.

Allow me to mention a few things before I continue.  First off, the woman on the far left in this picture from eleven years ago is me:

That is how people knew me for years.  A baggy-clothed butch girl with a pseudo-mullet.

Guess what I got!

I will give you two guesses, and they'd better both involve huge needles.

Yesterday was my last pre-T appointment with my therapist.  She gave me my T letter for my appointment with an endocrinologist for today.  I stayed at a friend's house because both were in the same area, rather far away from where I live, and bright and early the next morning there I was.

It was a lot easier than I thought.  They basically did a regular physical, then wrote out a prescription.  Then, after I already had my prescription, they took some blood for a baseline reading.  Interestingly, I hear all these stories of guys who have their first several shots at their doctor, but mine literally just told me how to do it and as soon as I fill the prescription I'm supposed to just, you know, pick it up.

I'm on .5 mL every seven days.  The needles in the picture are actually my practice needles.  I mean, they're the same needles and they're sterile, but they were given to me so I could practice and not to use for T.  Those needles I get when I buy them from whatever pharmacy I buy them at.  I get paid on Tuesday, so that'll probably be when, and I'm going to give myself the injection on Thursday because I'm meeting my aunt.

So that's that!  I'll keep you posted!
Happy Trails,
-- Jack

This was my "Coming Out Day" Status.

Since there are still eight minutes left of coming out day, I'd like to explain something because it is probably the one major source of depression in my life. I know that not all of you understand it, but I do not use female pronouns, I use male pronouns. I do not use female labels (sister, girlfriend, etc.), I use male ones. I am transsexual. I am not just saying this, I have a medical diagnosis from a gender professional, it is written in black and white on paper and in my medical records. This is present-tense. It is not future-tense, like "some day I will be male." I get hormones in January, but I already am male. It says so on my identifying documents, my school records, and my work records. If you really wanted, I could even get you numerous references from people who know me as a man and have for several years. And since it seems to come up really often now, if comparing me to Chaz Bono helps you understand it, then fine. I'm like Chaz Bono.

I already consider myself "out." There is nowhere I cannot refer to myself as either trans or male. So this "coming out" is not really "coming out" so much as an explanation that when I came out to you, I actually did mean it. If that fact makes you uncomfortable, consider how uncomfortable you would feel if every time somebody referred to you they used the wrong gender pronoun. Wouldn't that just suck?

Doctor appointment scheduled.

Today I scheduled my appointment with an endocrinologist.  December 19th.  Four days later than I intended, but you know, who cares?

Got it with my second phone call.  The first wasn't taking new patients, although the receptionist seemed to try very hard to get me to set up an appointment with someone else at the same hospital.

"Are they experienced with transgender patients?"
"Well, err.... uh... I don't know, I can ask."
"I have some other people I can call who I know are, I think I'll call them."
"Are you sure?!  I can ask, it won't take that long!"

She starts rattling off doctor's names, which I don't recognize, and I'm trying to find someone who might take my insurance and I know all of the people on my list at least take it for non-transgender stuff.  So I tell her I'll call back if I don't find someone else.

Next call, I asked if the endo was taking new patients, she said "yes."  I say I want to start hormone replacement therapy.  She asks if I have a letter (angelic noise).  I say I will have one, but that's not the point, the point is that the receptionist actually knew something about the subject.  She said I couldn't set up an appointment without bringing in a letter, but somehow she still set it up.  I think I may have misheard that first bit, maybe she meant I couldn't have the appointment until then, but again, that's a moot point because my therapist and I already planned out when I should go in, so the letter will be done by that time.

Not my T-date, though.  My T-date is probably going to be in early January if there are no problems found (fingers crossed).

Herp derping around the Internet...

I know I'm not the only person who has taken it.

My results were 50 in the male range, which as it turns out is absolutely average:

Not that I take too much stock in quizzes like this.  My favorite part of reading the results was when they were showing the average scores for men and women and they were exactly the same.  What?  Really?

Actually, no, I take that back.  My favorite part of reading the results was this:

Not because I nailed it, but because I remember that part of tests from when I was in elementary and middle school and how confused all of my chromosomal-essentialist teachers got when someone who at least looks to be lacking a Y chromosome can actually *gasp* move pictures in their mind!

I actually have a really bitter viewpoint of how teachers underestimate girls in math and stuff like that because when I was little they basically went "Well, Jackie, you got another D, but you're a girl, so it's OK."

The problem is that I'm really good at math.  They just decided that my decision not to apply myself was because as a girl I was bad at math.  Which is the problem with quizzes like this.  The fact that men and women are different (I know some of you will slam me for saying it, but we are) does not make women or men inherently good or bad at anything, at least not to the point where you can just give up on a child's abilities over it.

But yeah, that's my soapbox for the day.

My Therapy Postponement is Apparently Overexaggerated

My next therapy appointment is on September 22nd at 2:30.  The reason?  My Dad called me this morning, said that my Mom had gotten a bunch of money she was owed, and told me to schedule my next appointment.  So I did, and there you go.

If you were planning on donating anything, please still do, because I'd rather my parents have to pay for as little of this as possible.  But, at the very least, everything is still going and mostly on schedule.

Therapy Postponement and Stuff I've Learned So Far

I've had a huge run in with money (namely my school funding fell-the-fuck-through) and sadly I need to pay for school before therapy.  It's a difficult choice, but if I'm not in school I'll have a fuckhaul full of even more problems.  Talked to Kara about it, who said something about how I should rush testosterone, which quite frankly offended me a little but I'm sure I'll get over it.  Maybe I'll write about that someday, but right now I'm not in the mood.

By the way, yes, I'm resorting to begging, so if you like this blog please consider leaving something in my ChipIn.  It's in the sidebar to the left, or you can just click here.

But anyway, on to the actual interesting part of this post.  The thing is, for the past couple months I have been living more fully as male than I ever have been.  It was actually a pain in the ass to leave camp because most of my family still "she"s me all the time (even though they know), which they don't regularly do at camp, but I will tell you this:  At work over the summer, at work now, and at school, I am a man.  I mean, I'm a man otherwise, but other peoples' perceptions of me do give me a great deal more confidence in myself and leads to some interesting... learning experiences.  Which, of course, I'll detail here.

1. Women flirt with me.  Wait, women flirt with me?
   No, seriously, this was a big shock to me, because I still have it in my head that people are perceiving me as female, so when they act toward me in a manner similar to the way they interact with women, I assume they're just viewing me as women.
   As it turns out, in a substantial percentage of women, treating men in a way similar to how they treat their girlfriends is a method of flirting.
   In other words, I spent half the summer leading women on because I assumed their actions meant they secretly saw me as a woman, when in reality they saw me as a suitor.  Boing.

Close one?

Suddenly I feel almost happy about FTM invisibility.  Well, not really, but sometimes even shitty things have their advantages.

One reason I haven't been updating that often (as well as the fact that I'm at summer camp right now, which is another animal in and of itself) is that I've been in a little bit of a bind as far as how my transsexualism is being used against me in other contexts.  I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because I want to protect myself, even though the issue should be over with, but the basic story is as follows.

I was accused of sexual misconduct with a child I was watching.  I'm not going to go into detail, again, as to what I was accused of doing, but it was by the girl's father, who has limited custody.  I should mention, of course, that it was not true and that I was not the only person he falsely accused.  I freaked out, had a good talk with a friend, was a little better, wound up talking to my boss about it (remember I work at a summer camp?  Awkward.)

In the end, the people involved had a phone conference in which he told the entire story of what he "thought" I had done and said.  The entire story was based on the premise that I was a male-to-female transsexual.  Not even in a generic sense.  It was clear that the guy had made up this entire story based on the premise that because I am trans, I am a trans woman.

In other words, it was so utterly unbelievable that only the most mind-stretchingly stupid people could have possibly believed it.

So I'm back, probably, because that blew over and also because I have my computer back.  Huzzah!  Assume that a lot of my personal information from here on is going to be about how camp has been handling my transition, the answer to which is "surprisingly well, actually."

Regards,
-- Jack

I was a chugger, too.

This video showed up in my Original Plumbing feed today.

It's the testimony of somebody who worked for what I have come to know as a "liberal sweatshop," it's a canvassing contractor used by a lot of large lobby organizations like the Human Rights Campaign.  And I totally was a canvasser for them, so this is a very personal thing for me.

Therapy session five. Also, therapy isn't that bad. Seriously.

Scientologists.

Has it been two weeks since I posted anything?  Wow.  Oh, it was a little less than that because I delayed my therapy post.

So I had my last therapy session until September.  I already planned on postponing to work on the other half of the state through the summer, I had to postpone early because a clinic I went to five years ago decided I needed a surprise bill! for about what one of my sessions cost, and I want to avoid borrowing money.  I'm not in a bad mood about it, though, because I'm excited for the summer, my brother's wedding, and some other stuff and I know testosterone is going to happen anyway.  I told my best friend about this and he said "You've been waiting a quarter of a century, what's another two weeks?"

So today's session was actually devoid of depressing stuff!  But I've also for the past few weeks been thinking about the attitude I've been seeing among trans people with regard to therapy.  I'd like to address that, and we'll see how long it takes for my little hit counter to spike from somebody being angry at me ^_^

My Therapist Talks To My Spirit Guides, Also Dreams

So, I am a Pagan spiritualist.  Did I mention that already?  Well, it's true. Mostly I work with rocks because my God is a God of infertility and I can't work with plants very well.  But anyway, this came up at my therapy session and my therapist, who is an energy worker, said she wanted to try some energy work with me.  And I consented.

I'm not saying I regret it, and I like her a lot as a therapist, but honestly pretty much everything she told me was stuff we'd talked about at my third session.  Namely that I have been trying to transition into a different clothing style, but I trip up for... well, pretty silly reasons.  So basically a lot of "pay more attention to your personal appearance" stuff which was actually kind of my idea.  But, well, I'll take it as motivation to continue on this quest anyway.

After a long stay at the DMV of evil...

Went to the DMV today with my carry letter after a failed attempt at getting my social security information changed.  No big deal, in the state of Wisconsin it's legal to get the sex changed on your driver license without hormones or surgery provided you're in a formal gender program.

And, well, I am!  So I take the carry letter in and the first lady looks at me with this irritated look on her face as I explain I am there to get the gender on my license changed.

"Really?!" she says in the most snotty voice she can manage.  I am used to this kind of behavior from this particular DMV service station... I usually go to the one in the same city I go to school in because they've always been nothing but friendly to me, but the one I went to... well, I just went there to avoid the extra trip.  I expected this from them because they're always like that.  She gives me a form to fill out and I swear to Gods sort of "flicks" the ID at me, as if she wanted to throw it like an inaccurately-gendered ninja death star.

Because I'm not a woman.

My identity is incredibly simple.  I understand that not everybody's is... but mine is.  I am a transsexual.  I am a relatively traditional one.  I was born biologically female, but mentally and socially I am male.  Fully male.  Not halfway male.  Not female but masculine.  I am male.  Why is that so hard for people to get?

This list is written as a way to hopefully slap people into an understanding of what is really going on in my life.  It seems that no matter how I try getting people to understand what my gender identity really, they still consistently ask me "Why?" or "Why not?" when they learn I do certain things or refuse to do others.  I don't understand how I can make this more explicit to you people, so for some of you this will be my last attempt.

• Why do I keep cutting my hair as soon as it starts "getting to a length that looks good on me?"
• Because you are judging my appearance under the assumption that I am a woman.  The reason you think my hair looks "better" on me when it is longer is because you are still viewing me as a woman.  I am not.
• Why don't I shave my legs or under my arms?
• Because in my culture women are the ones who regularly shave their legs and underarms.  Men do not.  I am not a woman.  I am a man.
• On a side-note, I don't understand why you care about women's shavinghabits so much either.

My First Therapy Appointment

Harry Benjamin

Yesterday was my first therapy appointment.  I figured in case any of you are going to start therapy I'd talk about what goes on at my appointments.  I assume that this stuff varies from therapist to therapist, but that's just the way it goes.  It's also a personal transition diary.

I am going to call my therapist K because from what I hear her program is kind of popular and I don't want to slam her with more requests.  It uses the Harry Benjamin standards of care, which I didn't want to do but which I don't regret.  So far.

I show up early enough to go to the post office to mail something to Australia.  The office itself is in a residential building on the top floor, I punch the numbers into it and am let in.  K tells me through the speaker to use the elevator.  When I get to the top, she greets me and I enter.

Nightmares!

I'm having a great deal of stress lately, premature stress.  I haven't even gone to my first therapy session yet (one week and five days!) but I'm having so much stress related to testosterone it's insane.  I mean, it's at least around three months and two weeks before I even will know if I get the damned stuff and I'm worried about stuff like whether or not I'll be able to self-inject or whether or not I'm going to go bald.

I have financial worries, too, but right now I have enough support where I shouldn't worry too much.  Plus I have a job interview on Monday, and if they've hired my cousin, they should hire me.  My main reason for stress there is that I don't want them to fire me for being trans... not just because of the getting-fired-for-being-trans part, but because this is one of my favorite stores and I don't want to feel obligated to boycott them for firing me for a stupid reason.  But anyway, although finances are stressful, they aren't the stressful part of this.

The nightmares, though, are.